Drilling operations that circulate drilling fluids into the drill hole require some type of settling tank or treatment process to remove the drill cuttings from the drilling fluid prior to its recirculation into the drill hole. One method of removing the cuttings from the drilling fluid is to route the fluid to a receiving pit of sufficient capacity to allow the cuttings to settle out by gravity separation before the less dense fluid on the top thereof is let recirculated back into the drill hole. These receiving pits may be in the form of an earthen pit or a portable mud pit.
Construction of an earthen pit to receive the fluid mixture can be expensive and time consuming, and it must later be filled and stabilized before the site may be useful for other purposes. However, if a portable mud pit is utilized, it must be emptied using expensive pumps and such of drill cuttings periodically and when drilling is completed prior to transport. Usually when a smaller portable mud pit is used, emptying is accomplished with a shovel and requires time consuming manual labor. This presents some disadvantages since these portable receiving pits tend to be complex and costly or cumbersome and slow with only limited capacity.
In view of the above disadvantages and since drilling operations can proceed only as fast as cuttings are removed from the returning drilling fluid, there exists a need for an inexpensive and relatively simple self-cleaning mud pit for separating drill cuttings from the drilling fluid.